You have to know how your actions will affect others in the group and that takes a big brain. It also takes a lot of time to maintain those relationships. In the wild, that time is usually spent grooming. Grooming releases endorphins which help an individual feel relaxed and trusting of the company they’re in. In nature the more time two individuals spend grooming
each other, the stronger their bond tends to be. But there’s only so much time in
the day and that’s why brain size put a limit on how many friends and individual can have. This is known as Dunbar’s number and it’s a way to predict how big a natural group of animals will be. …so friendship is great but it takes a lot of time and intelligence which helps explain why in nature of these good friends really are hard to find

Please note, some Laughing Squid posts may contain affiliate marketing links, which means it is possible we will receive a small share of the sales of some of the products or services that are linked from our posts.